The Jets (2-1) climbs over .500 and beat the Patriots (1-2), 24-3, at MetLife Stadium in Week 3. Here three takeaways from Thursday night's game.
Fast Start on Offense
The Jets had their fastest start on offense of the season. The offense totaled 252 yards in the first half, 76 more yards than the first two quarters in each of the first two games combined.
"We kind of jumped the ball early," HC Robert Saleh said postgame. "[The Patriots] went into overtime and ran 72 plays last week, so we were trying to go a little bit quicker pace the first couple of drives, especially that first drive. I feel like we were able to accomplish that. Just trying to lean on them as much as we could."
The Green & White ran 39 plays, ran for 88 yards (4.9 avg) and converted 71.4% on third down. Aaron Rodgers completed 15-of-20 (75%) passes for 170 yards and 1 TD. He had a 116.7 rating.
"It's a great feeling," C Joe Tippmann said. "That's why we're trying to do every game. Especially being able to do it on a short week, not much preparation, lots of walkthroughs and visualizing putting yourself in that kind of position without actually doing it. It's a great feeling being able to check that off."
Pressure by Blitz
The Jets don't typically blitz under head coach Robert Saleh and DC Jeff Ulbrich, but that was not the case Thursday night. The defense blitzed Patriots QB Jacoby Brissett on 40% of his dropbacks, the team's highest rate in a game since Saleh was hired in 2021, according to Next Gen Stats.
Brissett was pressured on 8 of his 10 dropbacks when blitzed and took more sacks (3) than he had completions (2) against the blitz.
"Every game is different," HC Robert Saleh said Friday. "Obviously they had two new O-linemen in the game, so we felt like it would be good to get after them a little bit. That was really the gist of it. We did see some things from a protection standpoint that we could attack. Home game, get our guys going a little bit, get them going vertical."
The Jets sacked Brissett and rookie QB Drake Maye 7 times, led by DE Will McDonald IV, who had a career-high 6 pressures. McDonald, coming off a 3-sack performance in Week 2, had 2 sacks, 4 QB hits and a tackle for loss in Week 3.
"Will has done a great job of taking advantage of [opportunity]," Saleh said. "For him, it's kind of a blessing. Without Haason [Reddick] being here, it's given him a lot more opportunity than he probably would have taken had he been here. Credit to Will, he's worked on it, he's getting better and better and he's only going to get better."
Career-High for Conklin
Coming off a career-high 621 receiving yards last season, TE Tyler Conklin had a quiet first two weeks. He had caught 1 pass from QB Aaron Rodgers and 1 from Tyrod Taylor. In Week 3, he led the Green & White 93 receiving yards, a career-high, on 5 receptions.
"I think as a [tight end] group, we just control what we can control," Conklin said. "We go out there and try to do our best to help our team be successful, whatever that is in the run game or pass game. [Thursday], we just happened to get some targets and we're pretty happy about it.
"A couple of those situations was a scramble drill. Just tried to get open for [Rodgers]. All I had to was catch the ball, he made it pretty easy on me."
Three of Conklin's 5 five catches went for at least 20 yards and only one went for fewer than 10.
